


Grand Culmination of the Artic Calamity

by Littlevoidpuff



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: F/M, dragon priest oc, dragon priest time period
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2020-12-14 07:17:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21011897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlevoidpuff/pseuds/Littlevoidpuff
Summary: The first life of a soul defying fate. One that had walked with the most powerful and deadly creatures this world had ever come to know. One that had served them, served Alduin, willingly and with joy in her heart and no regret in her mind as she did so. One that did not apologize for the lies she told or the lives that she stole, who fought and killed, who lived and died by the words that her Master had spoken. One who would one day no longer exist beyond the scraps of memories that surfaced in dreams, and the scraps of emotions surging with all the force of the sky.





	1. Ashes in the Frost

Vinaaz couldn’t remember a time when she was unaware of the dragons. She’d learned the name of the Lord who ruled the plot of land she lived in before she learned her own. Before she’d learned to read, or to write, or even to talk, she learned that the beasts that soared through the sky on wings that split clouds like a hot knife through butter were her betters, her gods, even if she was so young that she couldn’t understand why other than they were bigger than her. As she grew older, she realized that her first impression of them, that they ruled them because they were bigger and stronger than weak, pathetic mortals like her, was not wrong. Not in the slightest. And she learned that power meant they could do whatever they wished, regardless of the destruction they’d leave in their wake, regardless of the rivers of blood that flung from those wretched wings with every beat.

She couldn’t remember how old she was when she learned that the dragons and their priests took what they wanted when they wanted it, because that was how things were. The strong took from the weak and the weak? What could they do but burn to ash in flames hotter than anything she could possibly imagine? Flames that turned bone to dust to flake and crumble in the wind.

There was a power unlike any she’d ever experienced in flame, but she was quick to learn and to teach herself, that there was just as much power in ice and snow, and in her desperation to not be one of the weak, to not be one of those that were trampled underfoot, buffeted with wings and voices that shattered the sky and rent the earth, she defied the idea that only the dragons chosen were allowed to wield the power of magic, and slowly taught herself in secret how to conjure and control a cold that she liked to think could freeze the sea and leave even the mighty winged gods vulnerable to shatter at a simple touch.

She remembered the innocence of her childhood, the innocence of watching dragons soar across the sky as easily as breathing, and reaching up with her tiny, wanting fingers, as if she could touch them, as if she could join them if she only reached far enough, only for her mother to quietly pull her hand down, lest anyone see her blasphemous pining, fear in her mother’s eyes that their cruel overlords would not show mercy on the pure wonder of a child.

That innocence was long gone. Even as she remembered the first time she saw a dragon up close, and averted her eyes from it, as she was told that they were not allowed to look directly at them, so she didn’t, even if she didn’t know why, she could smell it on the wind. Smoke and ash thoroughly intertwined with the distinct scent of charred human flesh, so thick that were she to plug her nose, she could taste it.

She’d been furious at the leader of her village’s unwillingness to act, to send hunters to see what was burning, enraged by him dismissing the tell-tale signs of their Lord reducing a neighboring village to nothing, out of fear that any action taken against the god would result in the destruction of their own village, and in hindsight, he was right, and she knew it, but she could not stand by and do nothing.

Despite knowing that she may damn them all for her actions, she stole a horse, and rode it as fast as it could travel to the closest village. She’d planned to go by all the nearest ones, just to check, just to make sure that the people were alright, that they’d not incurred the wrath of their lord, and if they had, to check for any survivors, but as her horse whinnied and lurched outside the still standing, still smoking gates of that little nameless village, protesting taking another step forward, she knew in the pit of her heart that there was no point in going further.

Smoke rose from the stone and wood gateway, and she could feel the heat of the burning village through the stone. Despite snow steadily drifting down, swirling and dancing in the wind, the ground was soggy with a thick layer of muddy slush, the heat emanating from the steadily burning village of wood and straw and dust melting the snow around the site of the disaster. The mud clung to her tattered boots as she dismounted the horse, and snow water seeped in through the holes as she walked as close to the gate as she could bare to with the heat beating down upon her as brutal and vicious as Skyrim’s winters. She’d never been so close to dragon fire before, and even with the thick stone and metal barrier of the village gate between her and the searing flames, it still stung her nose and made her eyes water, despite her best attempts to fight against it.

She took a deep breath before raising her hands over her head and felt the familiar flow of power rush through her veins. She held her breath as she focused on the power, on molding it into something that she could use, transforming it from base, static energy into a force of nature that there was little defending against, and as she exhaled, she brought her hands down in a sharp arc and an effervescent blade of icy energy struck down against the heavy gate barring her way, and at a touch, the stone shattered and the metal twisted under the force of her magic, cloven in two as easily as an irreverent child might rip a page from a book.

With a snap, the snow drifting daintly down swirled to life and surrounded her, like a swarm of stinging insects and yet she felt no pain nor even discomfort from the frost as she stepped through the ruined remnants of the gate to search the village for survivors. Such was her plan at least, until she was able to set foot in the village with nothing but her flimsy frost cloak protecting her from the surging heat of the still burning buildings. Nothing could’ve prepared her for the world of orange and red glowing embers and flames where a village that had once been as familiar to her as her own once stood.

She’d thought she’d always had a healthy respect for fire and the destruction it could cause, but she’d never been so close, and as she stepped past the gate, it was as though she’d sauntered straight into the jaws of a dragon mid flame burst. She’d never known a heat like this, scorching the very air that she breathed, stealing her breath from her lips, and forcing her to immediately retreat lest she incinerate her lungs merely from breathing in this heat.

She stumbled past the ruined stone and metal and fell to her knees in the snow, catching herself on her hands but she made no attempt to get up. Tears pricked at the corners of her burning eyes and she couldn’t stop them from pouring forth as she buried her face in the snow caking the ground in thick sheets. The cold was of little comfort to her as it cooled her eyes and seeped into through the seams of her leather hunting coat and soaked into her thin cotton tunic underneath.

There was no comfort in the knowledge that no one could survive that heat for long, and that at least the villagers would’ve died quickly, if not instantly, trapped inside those blazing buildings. No, she took no comfort in the knowledge that they wouldn’t have suffered. How could she? She’d known the people of this village as long as she’d known the people of her own. They were her friends, some of them were her _family_. How could there be any comfort in the wake of their deaths when they never should’ve died in the first place?

The sound of wings beating back the sky drew her from her despair, and as she lifted her head up to the sky to see the familiar form of her Lord circling the burning village, surveying and taking sick pride in his horrid work, her despair melted, evaporated into nothing as easily as the dragon fire melted the snow around her, and in its place flickered to life a roaring inferno of rage. Now was not the time for mourning. Now was the time for fury.

And as Viinaaz rose to her feet, mind calling for her magic before she was even standing, a single thought penetrated her mind as she gazed up at the dragon in fury.

_ What gave you the right?_


	2. Rampage of Fire and Ice

Her rash attitude had always been her greatest weakness, Viinaaz knew this, and yet hearing the return of the Lord of the Land, hearing it circling over head, she acted without thinking, and even if she wanted to, she could not turn back, turn away from what she’d done.

She’d _attacked _him. With fire in her heart and fury in her eyes, she’d launched an ice spear at him, throwing it at him with magic the same way a child might throw a toy in a tantrum, and though she’d not expected to actually hit the dragon with it, the spear caught him in the wing, shredding through the thin membrane, the only unarmored spot on a dragon, and halted his circling, his observations of watching what was left of the village burn.

The dragon floundered in the air at the sudden attack, blood spraying from the rips in its wing, but it did not fall to the ground. Instead, it glided down and landed in the snow away from what was left of the burning village, crashing to the ground with a heavy boom, its thrashing wings sending snow flying and mace like tail smashing into trees and sending them toppling down as it struggled to situate itself before turning its burning gold gaze onto her.

The dragon stared at the Atmoran expressionlessly and made no effort to inquire as to why she had dared attack it before spitting fire at her in what was meant to be a quick and easy retaliation.

“_Yol toor shul!”_

Viinaaz was already dodging behind a nearby tree when she heard that first word. She scrambled away from the direction of the dragon’s maw spewing flames, throwing herself into a snow drift as the tree she’d sought shelter behind crackled and crumbled to the ground as it felt the full fury of the dragon’s breath. Her heart pounded in her chest as she dragged herself out of the snow and hid behind a boulder barely larger than her, desperately praying it would prove a more adequate barrier.

The harsh, acrid scent of the burning pine assaulted her nose as she tucked down behind the boulder while the dragon let loose another jet of merciless fire, felling more trees in its enraged search for who dared attack it. Peering around the side of the boulder, she saw it’s back facing towards her, its fury burning down the forest in the opposite direction of her. Before she could clamber to her feet and sneak away, the dragon’s spiked tail went sailing over her head, and would have taken it clean off had she risen a heartbeat sooner, and crashed into another tree, toppling it. She threw herself out of its way before she could be impaled on the falling limbs and landed on her front in the snow. As she propped herself up on her hands and knees, she felt that murderous gaze land on her.

But as the dragon opened its mouth wide to finish her off with one final burst of soul searing flame, she desperately called for her magic one more time, determined to retaliate against its injustice one final time before dying, even if her actions would mean nothing but her own demise, and sent multiple shards of ice like daggers flying at the dragon. A high pitched wail emanated from the dragon, and she cringed at the sound like metal screeching against stone, and heard it thrash as her magic hit its mark but she kept her face hidden in the snow as she awaited her death at the hands of the dragon.

And she waited. And waited. And waited some more. It was not until a strange wind, warm and comforting, flowed over her, flowed_ through_ her, that she did finally lift her head to see why she was still breathing. She laid there frozen as she looked up only to see the dragon collapsed on the ground, jagged ice, once a silvery blue now stained red and melting at boiling hot blood, sticking out of the dragon’s lifeless gold eyes, eyes that once radiated with a heat that could rival the sun now reduced to a bloody gouged mess. She’d known that her spell had hit it, but she’d never expected to actually_ kill_ the dragon.

Astonished to see the god _dead_, she merely stared as the dragon’s body slowly crackled and burned slowly, its scales turning to ash as easily as it had reduced that village to ash. She recoiled in shock as she realized that strange wind washing over her was coming from the dragon’s burning corpse, and she shielded her eyes as the body burned hotter and brighter and that foreign magical energy rushed towards her with a searing heat.

Only once that strange magic dissipated did she open her eyes once more only to see that the dragon was now nothing but bones.

_Strange… Is that what happens every time a dragon dies?_

She found herself wondering as she crawled to her feet, her clothes soaking wet and clinging to her limbs like algae around a fishing line, the melted ice water dripped down her skin, and yet, as cold as her clothes were, as vicious as the wind picking up was, nothing chilled her to the core as much as the realization of what she had done. She stared at the bones as the horror crept over her and swallowed, hard, but could barely get past the lump in her throat.

_Oh gods… I killed a dragon… They’ll never overlook this…_

She knew that she was dead. She knew that the other dragons would kill her for this. She knew that they’d probably burn her own village down for her actions and yet there was absolutely nothing that she could do about it. She couldn’t go back, she couldn’t stop herself from coming here, she couldn’t take that first attack back.

The only thing that she could do was wait for them to come for her, and so that’s what she did.


	3. Aftermath

She lost track of the days that she’d stayed near the shattered remnants of that village. She’d not dared return to her own village, lest the dragons took their rage out on her home when they came, and she knew that they would. Hours after that dragon had died, a shout shook the sky, although she didn’t know very much of the dragon’s tongue, she definitely recognized the word Dovah, and she took that as a very clear sign that somewhere, at least a single dragon knew what she had done, and that running was pointless.

She could not return to her village even if that were not the case, however. The horse she’d _borrowed_ to get here had fled at the first sign of the dragon, and it had not returned to her. She certainly could not blame it for that, but while it was only half a day’s ride between it and her own village, it was a week’s walk, and with the steady stream of snow having in the past few days turned into a torrent of snow and hail. On foot, she’d be dead before she’d gone halfway.

Like most villages on the fringes of Skyrim, like anything that was tiny compared to them, the dragons did not bother to name this particular village, nor did they care to learn the names that the mortals gave to it, but she knew it. She knew it’s name, even if few others would care to learn it, to remember it. How could she not? She’d lived here after her own parents had died. She’d only moved to her own village once she’d gotten older, once she could provide for herself. Her aunt had wanted her to start trying to find a husband, and so she’d left _Andrellian_ at her wishes, even if she held no such desire.

Andrellian had finally stopped burning a day after she’d arrived, but Viinaaz could not summon the will to investigate the wreckage until that morning, instead taking refuge in a shelter she’d built with the wooden fragments of the gate that hadn’t burned. There was plenty of material to make a suitable shelter, especially after the dragon’s rampage. While most of the felled pines were far too large for her to make use of, their branches and needles worked nicely in both making her shelter as she waited for her death to arrive on swift wings, as well as for building the fire that would ensure she’d get the death by dragon that she’d earned, as opposed to freezing, or starving, to death.

She knew that she couldn’t put off her search any longer, and yet, even though it had been more or less safe to enter the wreckage, she’d put it off for as long as she could. Her aunt lived here, her cousins, and she did not want to stumble upon the bodies of the last of her family, but she knew that she needed to see it for herself. She needed to see that her rage had been justified, that her family laid among the dead. It would not justify her actions to any _dragon_, but it would at least justify them to most other mortals, even if few would ever admit they thought so.

And so she crept through the twisted metal gates of the village once again, and this time, as she stepped forth, she could _breathe_, and though the cold, bitter air stung her nose and made her lungs ache, it did not _burn_ and so she accepted the refreshing pain, reminding herself that the dead felt nothing, as she made her way down old dirt streets, caked in an acrid mixture of ash and fresh fallen snow, to find her aunt’s small leather shop.

Though she tried to push the memories away, she couldn’t help but remember many cold nights spent curled up in a pile in front of the hearth with her cousins, Shaza, Tora, and Rishra. Waking up in the morning to cinnamon in the air, a clear sign that her aunt had just finished making breakfast. Rishra, the oldest, and the only boy out of all of them, already being awake and bringing in more wood for the fire, Shaza and Tora, the twins, sleepy eyed and stumbling into the kitchen, and a few doorways on the way, perking up at the sight of their mother’s cooking, and without fail trying to steal tastes before everyone else. Their dark hair in various shades of brown and black contrasting with her ashen blonde hair. Most people didn’t even realize they were related at a first glance, but on closer inspection, there was no mistaking that she, like the four of them, had those same slate grey eyes, the color of the sky before a storm, the shade of twisters as they touched down from the sky.

She stood at the threshold of the ruined house, and although the wooden roof had burned like kindling under the force of the dragon’s surely misplaced rage, it’s stone walls were strong and remained standing even as most of the other wood houses crumbled into nothing. Despite the house being in shambles, she kicked the stone doorway to knocked the ashen snow from her boots before stepping inside, only to pause before she set foot past the door to see the stone she’d kicked crack before crumbling. She’d heard that even rock would turn to dust when it had been cooked hot enough, but she’d never seen it happen before. Not until now. She wished she hadn’t. If the dragon’s fire had been hot enough to reduce rock to rubble, would there even be anything left of a human’s body if exposed to the same heat?

Her vision wavered and blurred as she stared at the crumbled pile of stone, the idea of there being nothing left to even attempt to bury haunting her, as a wave of weakness washed over her. Her body tingled before going numb, and she slumped against the stone door way, her gloved fingers clawing into the cracking stone and turning it to dust in her grip, but she couldn’t feel it past the burning, tingling sensation overwhelming her body. It was as if she was caught in a cloud of stinging insects, and yet, the unpleasant sensation of her body refusing to obey her commands not foreign to her. All she could do was clench her jaws shut as she waited for the spell to pass.

Viinaaz wasn’t sure how long she stood there, motionless in that crumbling doorway, seeing the world continue to move on without her, but unable to process what was happening right in front o fher, much less react to it. Even as she heard powerful wings hold back the sky, even as she saw an eldritch dragon land in the center of the ruins of the village, she stood there, looking but not seeing, until the dragon spoke, and as she heard it’s words, so clearly addressed to her, as there was no one else around to speak to, she was able to break free of her spell.

“So,_ kiir_, you are the one who took the life of my brethren.”


	4. The Cons of Bravado

The sudden arrival of another dragon caught her off guard, and though she’d expected one to come by sooner, Viinaaz found herself disastrously unprepared to deal with it. She hadn’t thought it would talk to her. She’d figured it would simply swoop in, reduce her to ash, and then be on its merry way as though nothing had even happened, and instead, it stopped, and landed, and_ spoke_ to her, and while she’d been bracing herself for death, she was not prepared for a conversation. She turned, slowly, from the doorway to face the dragon, forcing her lips into a frown in a desperate ploy to display strength and nonchalance she didn’t feel and to keep the confusion from her eyes.

“Yes.” She answered as simply as she could to keep the tremor out of her voice as she looked up at the dragon. Even though she knew she’d die, she couldn’t help but be afraid, and the knowledge she’d killed her opponent first gave her no comfort in the face of her own end.

The dragon stared down at her with piercing green eyes and cocked its head to the side, and the display would’ve almost been comical, seeing such a large and dangerous being acting like an owl if the circumstances were any different. Viinaaz had never even seen a dragon on the ground before today, other than when the one she attacked came crashing to the ground, but she didn’t think that one really counted since it was trying to kill her.

“Who are you to raise a hand against one of us?” It asked, its voice rough, and harsh, like steel striking stone, and yet, there was no anger in its voice. “Who are you to feel entitled to take one of our lives?” It did not growl or snarl, or simply reduce her to ash. It spoke with a calmness as if it were merely asking about the weather. “What gave you the right?”

Viinaaz fell silent at the series of questions. She’d never spoken to one of their overlords. She was just an average villager, just another hunter, and she might as well have been a worm with how irrelevant and inconsequential she was to the dragons. Never in her life did she think she’d speak to one, and now that she was being interrogated, or at least, she assumed she was, even if it was doing so rather nicely. _What do I even say? Do I hold my tongue? Do I say my mind? If I’m gonna die either way, I guess it doesn’t really matter, does it?_

“No one.” She answered all of his questions at once as she looked straight into the dragon’s eyes, forcing her fear to the back of her mind, and forcing her spine to straighten. “I’m simply one of many humans.” She stated, shaking her head before continuing, “and I simply took it, because I wanted it. Just like all of you just take whatever you want.”

The dragon remained silent as it took in her words, and though she expected to be roasted for it, nothing was going as she expected it would today. A rough rumble thundered in the dragon’s chest, and it sounded as if it were coughing as its wings twitched, the sound harsh like steel scraping viciously against stone, but it wasn’t until the dragon’s entire body started shaking not too different than a child shivering in the cold, and it bowed its head as if to hide its face whether from fury or embarrassment, did she realize the creature was _laughing_ at her.

“Is that so?” It looked back up to her and suddenly, there was less than a foot in between her and its head, and as its lips pulled back in a smile, a frightening display of jagged fangs, each a polished ivory sword capable of biting a man in half as easily as a hot knife through butter, the fear she desperately fought to keep buried came boiling back up to the surface as she felt its fetid breath against her face, hot, like smoke coming off a furnace, and reeking of rot.

She hated being frightened, but fear could be useful at times, and when it wasn’t, it could be ignored, but to be laughed at like this? Even if she had her doubts any dragon would take her or anything she said seriously, that was just _embarrassing_, and she had no use for _that_ emotion. It was as useful to her as an anchor to a bird. But though it would be smarter to simply stay silent, and not make her situation worse, she’d never known when to shut her mouth and she had no intention of learning anytime soon either.

“Yes.” She swallowed her fear as she snapped back, riling up her anger to mask all else, letting it rise like an ember in the ashes, blowing it gently, nurturing it slowly, softly, with a mother’s love and pride to see it rise up in her, lighting up into flame, small at first, before letting it consume her like a wildfire devours everything hungrily in its path. “You take _everything_. Greedily, without care for the destruction you cause, or the lives you ruin.” She refused to let herself look away from its eerie glowing eyes, to back down. “It looks like the only thing you can’t take is anyone standing against you.” She stated derisively, her voice sharp like knives, colder than the snow drifting from the mountains, and though it surprised her that the beast let her say this much, she’d no doubt that it would tolerate much more.

The dragon threw its head back, and she thought it’d incinerate her now, but instead, it didn’t bother hiding its harsh, raucous laughter, smoke streaming from its nostrils as the harsh, grating sound crashed through the air with all the grace of an avalanche. “Oh, little one...” It began as it slowly composed itself, giving its head a fierce shake, as if trying to swat an aggravating insect, or to dispel its humor, before fixing her with a glistening eldritch eye faintly glowing with a green light. “I’m sure you are many things, but simply human is not one of them.” It stated before rearing up and straightening its wings slowly, before flapping them harshly, buffeting her with rough gusts of wind, and sending her crashing to the ground in a pile of ash and snow as the dragon kicked off from the ground, launching itself into the sky.

She watched the dragon circle above the village in confusion, because _surely this wasn’t over? It wasn’t really going to just fly off now, was it? A little interrogation and that was it? _

The dragon proved her suspicions correct when it suddenly swooped down towards her, and instinctively, she hid her face in the crook of her elbow, not wanting to see the end coming, but it didn’t. Instead, she found herself suddenly weightless, and as her eyes shot open, she found herself in a more precarious position than she’d ever been in. High up in the air, held captive in a dragon’s claws.

She heard the dragon speak, and though she had to strain against the buffeting winds stirred up by the fervent beating of its wings, the words it spoke made the color drain from her face.

“I doubt you’ve any idea what you are. Alas, your death is not for me to decide. Your fate belongs to Alduin, and Alduin alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyy sorry it took so long, and sorry its so short, but lifes been a bit of a mess lately, but hopefully I'll be updating more and more now that i've a ridiculous amount of free time. Also, keep an eye out for the beginning of Jura's story, it'll be on here soon too. Until then, feel free to drop by tumblr and send me some prompts if you're impatient!

**Author's Note:**

> This is the story detailing the life of the Jura as a Dragonpriest as part of my reincarnation AU. However as this is the prequel to Jura's story, it can be read alone without getting invested in Jura herself


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